Gentle
gestation and birth are important for insuring good social
outcomes. Babies gestated and born optimally have a positive
imprint on their world and this generates a feeling of connection
and trust that is reflected in their later life.

Some
current birth practices and violence to the mother and child
at birth are known to cause brain damage down to the brain
stem, contribute to higher medical costs and a host of other
ills such as later abuse, violence, drug abuse and crime
in the life of the child. For example, children of mothers
who received even standard medical drugs during birth are
some three times more likely to abuse drugs. Therefore optimizing
our birth practices is a crucial to domestic harmony, and
can dramatically improve our society. In fact, improvement
in this one area promises to largely eliminate many social
ills in a generation, and we can start right now.

Some
three decades of research and the experience of thousands
of births has shown that underwater birth is better for
the mother and for the baby. The mother is supported by
the water which permits her relaxation and easy movement
and during delivery of the baby from the womb to water,
the buoyancy of the water supports the baby’s brain and
protects it at its most vulnerable time.

Research
sufficient for us and experience since 1976 has shown that
dolphins are able to improve or heal a wide variety of conditions
including depression, autism, Down’s syndrome, cerebral
palsy, and microscopically. See: www.planetpuna.com/dp.htm
Underwater births in the Black Sea have been done for some
30 years and have shown that the children born in the water
with the dolphins develop 6 months faster over their first
six months, have perhaps 150 grams more brain weight and
are ambidextrous.

More and more people are seeking a dolphin attended and/or
ocean birth for these reasons. Dolphin therapy and birth
centers are forming in various countries around the globe
and are the subject of international conferences. We receive
by email something 1-2 requests a week from someone seeking
to birth with the dolphins.

Hawaii
is ideally suited for these therapy and birth projects.
We of the Sirius Institute have been researching and working
for the creation of such centers in Hawaii for the last
15 years and are known globally for our work. We have engaged
medical doctors, midwives and doulas for the project. Midwives
on-island are experienced in ocean births.

In
addition, the Hawaiian people practiced ocean births with
the dolphins up until at least 1937. Therefore, providing
dolphin attended births would revive a traditional practice.
Birthing centers are already being developed in Mexico.

It
is wise for Hawaii to be a leader in the field, to be the
pioneers that will allow us to fulfill our destiny as "the
healing island" and transform society by offering the
most optimal births we can envision.